


Starlight and Shadow

by ohmyfae



Series: Dads of the Year [10]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Found Family, Gen, Slight Horror Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-02 00:12:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16294637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: While Noctis and his friends are setting up camp, Ardyn Izunia happens to accidentally stumble onto the runes of their haven. The magic of the haven pulls him into two halves; One is Ardyn, a small child with a bit of an ego and a limited knowledge of the world at large, and the other is the Scourge, shambling and groundless, determined to seek out its former host and consume the light it finds there.





	1. Chapter 1

It was Noct's fault, really.

They'd just set up camp at the edge of the Slough, a fire burning bright against the darkening sky, when Ardyn Izunia had strolled through, feet braced just on the edge of the haven. He had a proposal, of course. An offer of assistance, never mind that they didn't trust him as far as they could throw him, never mind that he was smiling like a fox in the open doorway of a henhouse. 

So Noct, on his way back from washing his hands in the creek, had let his shoulder bump just a little too hard into Ardyn's. Ardyn's eyes had flown wide, and a strangled curse ground through his teeth as his designer boots came down heavily on the runes of the haven.

There was a cry, high and thin as the whistle of steam escaping a kettle, and the light of the campfire flickered, casting shadows over the stone. They twisted across the runes like a dozen grasping hands, and Prompto rose, gun drawn, as the bushes surrounding the haven rustled and the wind rose to a shriek. On the edge, Ardyn collapsed into himself without a sound. His coat sleeves went limp, his legs buckled, and belts and lace and ribbons fell to the stone in a heap.

"Oh my gods," Prompto whispered, his voice almost lost in the wind. "We killed the chancellor of Niflheim."

"What's Niflheim?" A small hand emerged from a voluminous sleeve, and Ardyn's hat tumbled off a mop of tangled red curls, which frizzed around a thin, pointed face. Ardyn's coat shifted, and a young boy emerged from the puddle of expensive clothes, blinking up at the men around the fire.

"What the hell," Gladio said. The boy jumped, and he gathered the folds of his massive accordion shirt to his chest like a blanket.

"I'm sorry," he said. He had a strange accent, with far more drawl than Noct was used to hearing. "I think I... Have... Have any of you seen my brother?"

Noct glanced at Ignis, who shrugged slightly, a desperate look in his eyes. Prompto looked just as panicked, and Gladio was probably too worried that the boy would startle to move. Noct sighed and got up, and the boy tensed, clutching his clothes tight.

"What's your brother look like?" Noct asked. He crouched down with his hands on his knees, and the boy narrowed his eyes.

"He looks like my _brother,"_ the boy said. 

"Right, sorry," Noct said. "I should've known that. I haven't seen your brother, but I bet we can help you find him. My name's Noctis. Do you know yours?"

"Of course I know _my_ name," the boy said, drawing himself up as much as possible in his mass of clothes. He lifted his chin. "I'm Ardyn. Ardyn Lucis Caelum."

Silence descended over the haven. In the Slough beyond, the wind moaned like a lost creature, howling over the still waters where the catoblepas slept. 

"You've probably heard of me," Ardyn said. He stuck out a floppy sleeve with the superior air of a councilman, head tilted back so he could look at Noct down the length of his nose.

"Yeah," Noct said. He took Ardyn's hand gingerly, like a spell about to explode. "I have a feeling I probably should."

It didn't take much convincing to wheedle Ardyn closer to the fire. He was a skinny kid, all elbows and knees, and one look at the camp stove was enough to draw him into one of the fold-out chairs while Gladio put the chicken back on the burner. His bare feet dangled just above the stone, and he looked at each of the men in turn, fire shining in his golden eyes.

"Excuse me," he said, over the sound of Ignis and Gladio whispering to each other in increasingly frantic tones. "Are you gods?" Noct and Prompto exchanged a look. "You have to be, if you summoned me. What are you the god of?" he asked Noct. "The night? Dreams? Can you _make_ dreams?"

"What? No," Noct said. Ardyn leveled him with a suspicious stare.

"It's rude not to share," he said.

"I don't make dreams," Noct said. "I'm not a god."

"I'd like one with a talking chocobo, please."

"I _said--_ " 

"Sorry, kid," Prompto said. "We're just regular guys."

Ardyn turned his baleful look to Prompto. "Well, you two aren't very godlike." He sighed, slumping in his chair. "So why was I sent here?"

"No idea," Noct said. "But don't worry. We'll help you get back."

Ardyn shrugged. The collar of his shirt almost hid his face from view, and he fiddled with the vest band he'd fashioned into a makeshift belt. 

"Here we are," Ignis said, in the awkward, stilted way he always spoke when faced with a child. He handed Ardyn a bowl and a fork and edged away, keeping a safe distance. Ardyn tore into it with enthusiasm, shoving his cheeks full of rice and chicken while Noct tried to introduce them all for the second time.

"None of those are real names," Ardyn said, spilling rice down his shirt. "Are you sure you aren't gods in disguise?"

"Pretty sure," Noct said. "My friends and I come from a place called Insomnia--"

"That's not a real name, either!"

"It's real enough," Noct said. 

"Then what are you?" Ardyn asked. "Why do you live in the wastes?"

Noct struggled to come up with something. Anything. Hunters. Tourists. Campers. But all he could do was stare at the small child bearing his own last name, and wonder what part of the world could possibly be called _the wastes._ Somewhere in Niflheim, maybe? But Ardyn didn't know what Niflheim was. Maybe he'd been kidnapped there. Maybe Noct had an uncle, a secret one, whose disappearance had been swept under the rug. Maybe--

"Crownsguard," Prompto said. "We're Crownsguard."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we protect the king," Ignis said, eyeing Prompto carefully. Ardyn slowly looked up, cheeks puffed with rice, his hands disappearing in his sleeves.

"Oh," he said. He swallowed. "Oh, okay, then." He set his bowl down on the ground and tucked his legs under him, trying to get comfortable in the camp chair. Behind him, the world beyond the fire was dark, a pitch blackness that swept about him on either side like the wings of a great bird. Noct got up, and Ardyn's gaze followed him as he crouched into the tent. Noct dragged out their sleeping bags, lining them up by the fire, and arranged most of the pillows in his armiger around the empty tent, forming a makeshift nest of blankets. 

"There," he said. "You get the tent, Ardyn. We'll camp the old-fashioned way tonight."

Ardyn blinked slowly, then slid to his feet. He stepped over the bowl and skirted a wide circle around Gladio, who looked slightly wounded, and peered into the entrance of the tent. Seemingly satisfied, he climbed inside, plopped down on the pillows, and rolled himself into a tangle of sheets and sleeping bag until there was only a tuft of red hair poking out of one end.

"I'm a cocoon," he whispered.

Noct grinned sidelong. "Yeah, I see that."

Ardyn giggled and rolled to the edge of the tent. Noct picked up his phone and sent Ignis a text. _Did Dad have a brother I don't know about?_

 _No,_ Ignis texted back. In the tent, Ardyn started kicking pillows around. _I admit I'm at a loss._

"So am I," Noct whispered. They all turned to look at the tent, where a young boy was collapsed in the center of a mess of pillows, eyes snapping closed, still smiling. He gave Noct a little wave, and Noct waved back.

They took turns keeping watch, just in case whatever happened to Ardyn wore off in the night, but by the time it was Noct's turn, Ardyn was still asleep, one foot flopping out of the tent, limbs akimbo, mouth open in a wheezing snore. Noct sighed and looked up at the sky, where stars clustered in a band, brilliant and clear.

After a moment, Noct heard a gasp come from the tent, and the patter of bare feet. He grunted as Ardyn slammed into him, small hands braced on his chest, twisting up the fabric of his shirt. Noct sat up, and Ardyn tried to push him down again.

"Don't move!" he hissed. "They'll see you!"

"Okay, okay," Noct whispered. "I'm not moving. What can see us? What's wrong?"

Ardyn was shaking, his whole body trembling like a snapped wire. His chest was heaving in short, uneven breaths, and his eyes were wide and unblinking. "Daemons," he whispered. He raised a hand to the stars.

"You mean the stars?" Noct asked. "The lights in the sky?"

"Eyes," Ardyn said. He shrank down, holding onto Noct. "They're eyes."

"Oh. Oh, no, Ardyn, look." Noct wriggled an arm free and wrapped it around the boy's shaking shoulders. "They're stars. Tiny suns in space, so far away that we can only see a little dot of light. Look, there's the Archer, those three dots. And the Garula."

Ardyn pressed his face to Noct's side, but he still followed Noct's finger over the sky, tracing out shapes. "There shouldn't _be_ stars," Ardyn said. "Papa says all the stars went away with the Scourge."

"Well, they're here now," Noct said. "That's the fox. See his nose?"

Ardyn's hands slowly eased their death grip on Noct's shirt, but he kept close, blinking away tears as Noct pointed out constellations.

"I used to love the stars as a kid," Noct whispered. "Ignis and I used to sneak out to stargaze all the time, and Dad bought this map for me, which had a wheel that rotated based on the season. I bet I can find one for you, if you want. They're pretty much everywhere."

Ardyn rubbed at his cheeks with the palm of his hand. "Why do they all have names?" he asked.

"It'd be boring if they didn't," Noct whispered. "Some of them even have stories. Do you want to hear one?"

Ardyn nodded, and Noct glanced down to find that Ardyn's right thumb was pink and dented with toothmarks. Ardyn slowly raised it to his mouth and gnawed on it, gaze fixed on the sky. Noct squeezed his shoulders a little, and Ardyn let out a long, shaky breath.

"Right," Noct said, and pointed to a group of stars. "Those are the dancers. Their story's a long one..."

Noct made it halfway through before Ardyn stopped trembling. When the boy fell asleep at last, it was with his head on Noct's shoulder, wild hair hanging over his eyes, and a thumb stuck firmly in his mouth. Noct watched him for a while, thinking about the smug, worldly chancellor who'd met them at Galdin Quay, so far removed from the small boy who ate like he was starving and panicked at the sight of a star.

Noct lay back, listening to the whistle of Ardyn Lucis Caelum snoring in his arms, and watched the starlit sky slowly wheel its way towards dawn.


	2. Chapter 2

Noct woke to a slap in the face.

"Wake up!" Ardyn, still a young boy drowning in his former self's oversized shirt, pushed Noct's shoulder, rolling him directly into a stone. "You'll miss the sunrise!"

"That's the point," Noct muttered. 

"But it's so big today!" Ardyn said. "And Prompto said we can go to the water and watch the catoblepas."

Noct groaned as Prompto's face slid into view. "Sorry, dude. You've been voluntold."

Birds sang with a perverse cheeriness as Noct dragged himself into the light, running gel through his hair and staggering through the weeds. Ardyn found a stick somewhere in the mud, Prompto found another, and the two of them held an epic sword fight on the edge of the water while Noct tried to remember what it felt like to be human.

"Hey, little guy," Prompto called. "Strike a pose."

Ardyn stopped in the middle of kicking over a stone. "What?"

"A pose. You know, for a photo." Prompto whipped out his camera, but Ardyn just stared at it, brows snapping together. "Hold your sword up, little dude." Ardyn glanced at Noct as though seeking permission. Noct shrugged, and Ardyn cautiously lifted his stick in the air. Prompto took a photo, and Ardyn jumped at the click of the shutter. "Take a look!"

Ardyn stood stock still as Prompto crouched next to him, showing him the photo on his camera screen. "I don't get it," he said. "How did you do this? Is it magic? Something from Solheim?"

"It's..." Prompto looked at Noct. "It's a camera. It takes pictures."

"I know what pictures are," Ardyn said. His voice trembled. "They're drawings. This isn't a drawing."

"Hey," Noct said, and Ardyn jumped again, eyes wide. "How about we go back to camp, huh? I bet Ignis has breakfast waiting for us."

Ardyn nodded, still staring at the camera, and drifted over to Noct. He reached for his hand, and Noct took it, walking slowly to match Ardyn's short, unsteady strides.

Back at camp, Gladio was prepared with a toothbrush, a cup of water, and a comb, standing ready like a sentinel at the gates of a fortress.

"Nooooo," Ardyn moaned, flinging himself into Noct. 

"Hey, beauty's pain, kid," Gladio said. "But this won't hurt, I promise. Unless you want it to get so tangled you gotta cut it off?"

Ardyn gasped. 

It took them nearly two hours to pack up camp, especially after Ardyn discovered a new game, all by himself, that involved throwing bits of egg in the air and trying to catch it with his face. He marched ahead of everyone as they made their way to the car, pointing out butterflies and birds and wasps, and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw the Regalia.

"What _is_ that?" he asked, crawling under the roadside fence. Noct hopped over and patted the back of the trunk. 

"Only the best car ever made," he said. "We're gonna take you somewhere to get new clothes."

"I like the clothes I have," Ardyn said. "They're nice. What's a car?"

"It's..." Gladio cleared his throat, leaning on the side door. "It's like..."

"A carriage," Ignis said. "One that moves on its own."

"That's a lie you're telling me to make me look like a fool," Ardyn said. Ignis raised his hands in surrender and got into the driver's seat.

"He's right," Noct said, and Ardyn scowled at him. "Climb in and you'll see."

Ardyn clambered into the middle of the backseat, sitting awkwardly with his hands gripping the edge, and stared intently at the screen on the dashboard. When Ignis turned on the engine, Ardyn screamed so loudly that Noct's ears rang.

"It's fine!" Noct shouted, as Ardyn climbed into his lap, wrapping his arms around Noct's neck. "It's okay! Ignis, turn off the engine!"

Ignis hurriedly turned the key, and Ardyn's scream echoed down the street, high and miserable. "Easy, kid," Gladio said. He leaned over to rub Ardyn's back. "That was pretty scary, wasn't it?"

Ardyn sobbed wretchedly, dripping tears and snot on Noct's shirt. 

"I'm sorry," Noct said. "It's safe, I promise."

"It sounds like a _daemon,_ " Ardyn whispered.

"It's not, though. It's like... Like a cat. A big metal cat, right? And it purrs, because, uh--"

"Because it likes us," Prompto said. Ardyn risked looking up at him, and he lay a hand on his chest. "Cross my heart."

"I don't know what that means," Ardyn said.

Noct sighed, leaning back in his seat, and Ardyn slumped over his shoulder. "Let's wait a minute and see how you feel, okay, buddy?"

It was another fifteen minutes before Ardyn agreed to let Ignis turn on the car again. He clung to Noct the whole time, holding his breath, and when the car first started off at a slow crawl down the road, he nearly screamed again. Ignis kept the Regalia going at a leisurely five miles an hour, watching Ardyn anxiously through the rearview mirror while Gladio held Ardyn's hand.

They made it to the thrift store half an hour later.

"We had a little accident," Prompto whispered to the cashier as they all piled inside, Ardyn holding Gladio and Noct's hands. The cashier looked at Ardyn and placed a hand on her heart.

"Oh," she said. "Poor thing."

"Let's prepare for a few days," Gladio said, leading Ardyn towards a rack of clothes. "Pick out whatever you wa--"

"Moogles!" Ardyn cried. He broke free of Gladio and Noct and careened into a rack, pointing to a shirt with a moogle cartoon on the front. "I love moogles! They're everywhere back home. I snuck a whole wheel of cheese into a moogle den once. They're quite fat," he added. "Because of the cheese."

Noct struggled not to smile. "Huh," he said. "Didn't know that."

"I know everything there is to know about moogles," Ardyn said. His voice lowered a little as he ran his hand over the shirt. "I love them."

"Alright, we're getting one," Gladio said, snatching up one of the shirts in a smaller size. Ardyn grinned. "And a chocobo shirt. Every kid likes chocobos."

"Oh, chocobos are wonderful," Ardyn said, trailing after Gladio. "Gen says she's giving me one for my birthday, 'cos Somnus is tired of sharing. I hope it's a black one. Black chocobos are the smartest. Did you know that there are seventeen breeds of chocobo? That's more than both hands! Somnus says..."

Noct leaned against a rack of records while Ardyn babbled at Gladio, dragging a flower-printed shirt and striped pants off a table as they passed. Prompto sidled up to Noct and nudged his shoulder.

"I thought moogles were extinct," he whispered.

"They are," Noct said. "For about a thousand years."

Ardyn reached for a floral snapback, which Gladio pointedly lifted to a higher peg on the wall.

"Maybe there's a hidden group of them," Prompto said. 

"Yeah," Noct said. Ardyn was bouncing on his toes, lecturing Gladio on the proper feeding habits of chocobos with the air of a professor. Gladio nodded sagely, and the woman at the register smiled and gave Ardyn a sticker. He spent the next minute trying to figure out how it worked, then turned to Noct with a helpless look.

"Yeah, I got you," Noct said. He leaned over and showed him how to peel off the sticker. "Now put it on something."

Ardyn looked at the sticker. It was a cartoon chocobo, bug-eyed and open-mouthed, with its beak crooked in a ridiculous smile. He tapped the back with his fingers a few times, frowned, and slapped it on the back of his hand.

"Perfect," he said.

Gladio helped Ardyn change in the bathroom of a caravan stationed near the woods, and Ardyn came out in the moogle shirt, striped pants, chocobo sneakers, and a visor with the words "Welcome to Lestallum!" printed over the top in bright pink letters. He sat with Prompto in the fold-out bed, telling him all about the chocobo he wanted, and Noct took that chance to drag Ignis and Gladio into the bathroom.

"Somnus," he whispered. "He said his brother's name is Somnus."

"Somnus Lucis Caelum," Ignis said. "I know. The coincidence is... odd. He can't truly be from the founder king's time, of course..."

"Yeah? Explain the car," Noct said. "And he didn't know what a camera was. All that talk about the wastes? The Starscourge?"

"Ardyn Izunia seems modern enough," Ignis said, but he didn't sound convinced. "I'll contact the archivist at the Hunter headquarters. Perhaps they have something that may shed light on this situation."

They had an early night, taking care not to use their cellphones where Ardyn could see them and breaking out their stack of cards instead. Only Gladio remembered that kids technically needed a bedtime, but after Ardyn stumbled out of the caravan for the fifth time, blinking hard and trying not to fall asleep on his feet, Noct collapsed on the couch next to the foldout bed to keep him company. Ardyn lay in his bed for about half a minute before he dragged all the blankets over to Noct. He snuggled next to him, back to the narrow window, and grabbed Noct's arm to drape it over his shoulders.

"Doin' okay?" Noct asked.

"There's something outside," Ardyn whispered. "I heard it scratching on the wall."

"Just the trees," Noct said. "Don't worry."

"It had my voice," Ardyn said. 

"Sounds like a pretty bad nightmare to me," Noct said. He gave Ardyn a brief, sideways hug. "Don't worry, Ardyn. You're safe with us."

Ardyn pressed his face to Noct's shoulder, closing his eyes tight against the dark. "I hope so."


	3. Chapter 3

Gladio ran a hand down the back wall of the caravan. Deep gouges caught his fingers, almost two inches deep in places, long and ragged and too oddly-spaced to belong to any creature they knew. When Gladio drew his hand away, Noct could see something black oozing in the middle of the deepest mark.

"Mold?" he said. "So these aren't new."

"I dunno about that," Gladio said. He scuffed his shoe in the asphalt, disturbing fresh dust and plastic. "Looks like the kid was right. Something _was_ outside last night."

"But there were warding lights," Noct said. Still, the lights weren't foolproof, and the caravan was just on the edge of the barrier, nestled close to the trees. Noct peered into the woods. Branches rustled in a high breeze, but the undergrowth was cloaked in shadow, with only the barest flicker of sunlight. 

_It had my voice,_ Ardyn had said.

"A daemon," Noct said. "Right. We'll take him to Lestallum, then. Stay at the Leville for a while."

"If he'll be okay with driving more than ten miles an hour," Gladio said. Noct nudged his shoulder and rounded the corner of the caravan. In the parking lot, Ignis sat in the driver's seat, Ardyn perched on Prompto's lap, pointing out the different functions of the car. Ignis still treated Ardyn like a small, volatile creature about to attack, but Ardyn was entirely unfazed by Ignis' discomfort. He was blasting the radio by the time Noct and Gladio climbed in, and scurried over the seat to plop down between them.

"Okay," he said, grim-faced in a bright yellow chocobo shirt. "I'm ready."

He grabbed Noct's hand when the car started, but was otherwise determined not to make a fuss this time around, staring fixedly ahead of him as the car wheeled out of the lot. His hand tightened around Noct's fingers, and Noct squeezed back. After a few minutes of this, when the car no longer seemed liable to explode, Ardyn slowly started to ease back in his seat. He watched the landscape flash by, still holding Noct's hand, and nearly spoke up a few times as they passed herds of animals climbing up the hillsides. When they pulled up into the gates to Lestallum, Ardyn sat up on his knees and twisted his head back towards the tunnel.

"I don't know this place," he said.

"It's Lestallum," Ignis said. "Home of the famous Ex--"

"Lestallum's a _mine,_ " Ardyn said. "I've been there three times. It's just a ton of holes in the ground, and everyone's always sick there." He blinked up at the high buildings and colorful awnings as they backed into a parking spot. "This isn't Lestallum."

"Maybe it's a different one," Noct said. 

Gladio rubbed the back of his head. "Hey. Ardyn. Who's the last king you remember?" he asked.

"No one's king," Ardyn said, but his hand curled under Noct's, and he looked down at his new sneakers. "Not yet. But Somnus says the last king was Solis. We burn a puppet of him on the Longest Night."

Noct didn't need to ask to know that King Solis was the last ruler of Solheim, infamous for betraying Ifrit and dooming his kingdom to an early grave. There were ruins depicting his fall all over Lucis, and an entire book dedicated to the festivals that burned effigies of him in the hope of pushing back the Scourge. The practice died out early in the modern era, but people still built bonfires in midwinter festivals, an echo of an ancient ritual. 

Ardyn knelt on the seat, a strange child in modern clothes, his gold eyes wide.

"Who's the last king _you_ remember?" he asked. The others' gazes pulled inexorably towards Noct, and he turned with them, brows furrowed. "You know something, don't you?"

Noct let out a long breath. "Ardyn."

"Don't lie to me." 

"The last king I remember was my father," Noct said. Ardyn searched his face, looking more than a little doubtful. Noct wondered if he should feel offended. "I think the gods sent you further out than you thought."

Ardyn was silent for a long minute, staring at Noct. Then his gaze drifted to Lestallum, to the sun-soaked streets and food carts lined up by the lookout, the musicians perched on a ledge, strumming beat-up guitars.

He smiled.

"I did it," he said. He looked back to Noct, and his eyes shone. "That's why the stars are out. That's why no one's sick in Lestallum. That's why the gods sent me here. So I can see. I _did_ it!"

"What'd you do?" Noct asked. Ardyn pushed at his cheeks with the palm of his hand, beaming up at the bright, cloudless sky.

"I got rid of the Scourge." He stood up and climbed over the back of the Regalia, sliding onto the concrete. Noct fumbled to get out the door after him. "See, there used to be these things called daemons? You probably don't know what they are."

"We've heard of them," Gladio said. He sounded distant and vague, and he lagged a few feet behind, a hand at his neck.

"Well, they were all over. Hundreds of them! Thousands of them! People were turning into them all the time, and the gods needed someone to help. So they picked me, because when they asked Somnus, he said no, and I said yes." Ardyn turned to face Noct. "Somnus didn't say no because he was afraid. He said no because he didn't want to leave me alone."

"I see," Noct said.

"He's my best friend," Ardyn said, a little defensively.

"Yes."

"He's going to be so excited when I go home." Ardyn skipped ahead, walking backwards, trying to take in as much as possible. "He won't _believe_ cars. Or cameras. Or stickers. Or shirts with moogles on. Or, or. Or... What else is there?"

"Cell phones?" Prompto said.

"Sephones!" Ardyn cried. "What's a sephone? What's everything? Why is _Noctis_ a king? Where'd his crown go?"

"We're in disguise," Noct said. Ardyn didn't even seem to hear him.

"What are you king of? Is New Solheim still around?"

"It's called Lucis," Noct said. "I'm..." He lowered his voice. "Kind of the king of Lucis."

"Lucis? Like my name, Lucis?" Ardyn frowned. "Wait. What's _your_ last name?"

"Lucis Caelum," Noct muttered, eyeing the tourists glancing their way. "Look, it's not a good idea to--"

"Are you..." Ardyn held his own face with both hands. "Are you my _grandson?_ Do I get _married?_ Tell me it isn't Artemis. She's terrible. It's Artemis. Oh my gods, I married Artemis."

"Hold on, little guy," Prompto said. "Nobody said you married anyone."

"I had to, if Noct is my grandson," Ardyn said. He looked off into the middle distance, probably contemplating the vast, unknowable reaches of marriage. "Wow. Gross."

By the car, Ignis was on the phone, speaking in a low, urgent voice. Noct flashed him a curious look, and he flapped a hand. "So, uh. Ardyn. You said the gods chose you."

"To be king," Ardyn said. He grabbed the ledge of the lookout and tried to pull himself up. "I'm. Gonna. Be king. Once I. Help, please."

Gladio numbly lifted him up. 

"I have to heal people first," Ardyn said. "Put me down? Not there!" He sighed in frustration as Gladio plopped him back on the concrete. "I've done it already. It's like... Somnus says its like I eat the Scourge. It goes into me, I fall asleep, Gen wakes me up, and I do it again. It hurts sometimes, but Gen says it's working. And it did work." He grinned. "It worked everywhere." 

Noct leaned down, trying to think past the endless loop of unintelligible screaming in the back of his mind. "We're... We're glad you're taking this so well, Ardyn, but you know... People will get kind of freaked out if they hear there's a kid from--"

"I understand," Ardyn said. "I have to be in disguise. Like you. Why are you in disguise?"

"Long story," Noct said. 

"Paparazzi," said Prompto. Ardyn gave him a blank look, and he shrugged. "Okay, long story."

"You know what," Gladio said, frantically texting with both hands, "I got a little sister here, Iris, and a friend named Talcott. They're experts on the modern world--Why don't we go find them, and you guys can eat on the balcony of the Leville and talk?"

"I definitely think I need an expert," Ardyn agreed. "But I'd like to talk to Noct. Why are you so short? Are you still growing?"

Prompto covered his mouth to hide a cackle, and Noct sighed.

"One thing at a time, kid," he said.

"Grandpa," Ardyn said, with all the confidence of millennia in his voice. "One thing at a time, _grandpa._ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this development won't end badly at all!


	4. Chapter 4

Ardyn Lucis Caelum sat on a soft rug in the upstairs room of an inn, watching drawings move on a box stuck to thin little tentacles on the wall. There was a dish called curry on a round pad of paper in his lap, Gladio's sister Iris had given him his own stuffed moogle toy, and Talcott, who was older than Ardyn by two whole years and smarter than almost everyone except Somnus, sat next to him and told him what the drawings were doing on the screen.

He didn't have to heal anyone. There were no more daemons, no Scourge making his eyes twinge and his stomach churn, no pain to wake him in the night. Just curry and moogles and Noctis, sitting on the bed behind him, smiling every time he caught Ardyn looking.

Ardyn liked Noctis. He'd never had a father, really--Well, he probably did, but he couldn't remember him, not the way Somnus did. But he figured if he _did_ have a father, a real one, one who could carry him on his shoulders and teach him how to ride a chocobo and learn the sword, he'd like one like Noctis. 

Maybe a few feet taller, though.

The box made his eyes hurt after a while, so Ardyn set his food aside and examined his moogle doll. Maybe he'd call it... Somnus. Somnus II. No, Noctis. Lucis. Prompto.

"What should I name him?" he asked Talcott. Talcott shrugged.

"I dunno. Wanna play darts?"

"Boys," Ignis said. "Don't break anything."

"Sure thing, Mr. Ignis," Talcott said. He grinned at Ardyn and waved him over to the dart board.

They _did_ break something, of course, but as Ardyn explained, standing in front of a tearful Talcott like a good future king was supposed to, it was the inn's fault for making all their lanterns out of glass in the first place. After that, it was brushing their teeth--a strange practice, but maybe they didn't have the bitter sticks everyone chewed on back home--and changing into new clothes for bed, while the adults all huddled together and whispered. Talcott and Ardyn got to sleep next to each other, just like Ardyn and Somnus did most nights, and Talcott admitted that it was pretty normal for the guys to stay up late to talk.

"Is this because Noct's in disguise?" Ardyn asked. "They need to plan for it?"

"Sort of," Talcott whispered. He made a tent with the blankets, and Ardyn helped him hold it up. "Prince Noctis... King Noctis has a lot to do right now."

"How long has he been king?" Ardyn asked. Talcott narrowed his eyes. "Sorry. I'm not from here, so..."

"Oh. He was king when his dad died, I guess," Talcott said. "Two months ago."

Ardyn let go of the blanket, wrapping his arms around the moogle.

"King Regis was killed," Talcott whispered. "Him and Uncle Clarus. It was terrible."

Ardyn peeked out over the edge of the blanket. Noct was sitting on the balcony with Ignis, holding his sephone--cell phone--with both hands. Every now and then, he looked up at Ignis, made a face, and shifted in his seat. Somnus got like that, too, sometimes. Quiet. Like he was in pain, but the pain was somewhere too deep for Ardyn's magic to reach. Ardyn wondered if anyone was there to hug _Noct_ like Noct hugged Ardyn, that time in the car. If he'd ever cried at all.

It didn't seem right. Ardyn shouldn't have taken in so much of the Scourge just for Noct's father to be killed. He wondered if that was part of the reason the gods sent him forward in time. Maybe he was supposed to do something for Noct--Ardyn _was_ the king of light, after all. Maybe he would keep getting yanked forward every now and then, sent to rescue his descendants from plague and danger and misfortune, like a sort of guardian spirit. He liked that idea. He liked the thought that, even when he did go back, he could still pop in to check on Noct if Noct was in trouble.

He waited until the others had drifted off to bed, leaving Noct alone on the balcony, his head nodding over his cell phone. Ardyn carefully eased out of bed and tiptoed across the floor. It was slow going, opening the balcony door without waking anyone up, but Ardyn managed it just enough so he could squeeze through. 

The balcony was washed with blue light from the overhead lantern, which was wreathed by fluttering moths. The city wheezed smoke against the windows of its high buildings, and night birds hooted in the distance, oddly harsh and braying, not at all like the birds Ardyn knew. Ardyn pulled up a chair, and the squeak of plastic on concrete startled Noct awake, his bright blue eyes so unlike Ardyn's, heavy with sleep and framed by thick black lashes.

"Hey, buddy," he said.

 _Buddy._ It was a nice thing to be called, Ardyn thought. Like friend. "Hey," Ardyn said. He climbed into the chair. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Noct ran a hand over his face. He didn't _look_ okay. "What's up? Can't sleep?" Ardyn shrugged, and Noct set his cell phone on the table. "Ardyn, I wanted to--"

"I'm sorry about your father," Ardyn said. Noct fell silent, mouth open. Ardyn twisted his hands together. 

"Thanks," Noct said, in a small, funny sort of voice. 

"Do you want me to pray for him?" Ardyn asked. "I'm not a priest, but, um. When people die, I usually say something."

"Do people... die often, around you?" Noct asked.

"They used to," Ardyn said. His face burned with shame. "Before I got better at it."

Noct covered his eyes for a second. When he lowered his hand, his brows were all scrunched together, like he was trying not to cry. Ardyn jumped down from his chair and held out his arms. Noct leaned over for a hug, and his thin hair tickled Ardyn's cheek.

"Dear Regis," Ardyn whispered, just as he'd done for dozens of daemons and animals and stiffening bodies in the wastes. "I love you, and I'm sorry you're gone."

Noct's hands tightened for a moment, then Ardyn was pulled close, Noct's arms warm and secure around him as Noct sank to a knee in front of the chair. Noct was shaking a little, and his breath had that thin, rasping quality to it that Ardyn saw in villagers running from the miasma of the Scourge, their families left in houses and barns, lost forever.

"It's okay to cry," Ardyn said. "I won't tell anyone."

Noct made a strange noise at that, like a mix between a groan of frustration and a sob, and pet the back of Ardyn's hair. It was... It was nice. No one touched Ardyn's hair, ever, not even Somnus, and Ardyn felt his own eyes start to sting and his throat go tight. He didn't want to go back. He wanted to stay there, with Noct, where the sun rose every morning and there were moving drawings, and people pet his hair and hugged him like he wasn't some untouchable chosen king. 

"I'm so sorry, Ardyn," Noct was saying. "I'm sorry."

Ardyn hung on, closing his eyes against Noct's shoulder. "I wish I didn't have to go," he said.

Noct squeezed him tight. "Yeah," he said, hoarsely. "Me, too."


	5. Chapter 5

It was a well-known fact that no daemon could cross the bright, unwavering lights of Lestallum. Even the cleverest of them, the liches and dragons and mindflayers, could only sit at the edges and watch, unable to drift close for fear of setting off the flashing alarms of the outskirts. Sometimes they tried to prey on the engineers who responded to those alarms, strapped to wires and fitted with every personal warding light known to man, but on the whole, they'd learned to keep their distance.

The creature that stood on the border of Lestallum hadn't learned the caution of lesser daemons.

They weren't even a daemon. They didn't know what they were yet. They only knew the shape they'd taken before, the limbs that carried them through the reaches of Eos, the body that fed them pain like a spring bubbling in a deep cave. They knew the name they called themselves, once, and as they struggled to keep their form, their featureless face stirred with miasma in the shape of curling hair, and their mouth opened impossibly wide, a pit of darkness that churned with the violet stain of the Scourge.

"Ardyn," they would have said, if they could speak. But the sound that came from their core was not yet as polished as the human tongue, and only one mortal could hear them, wrapped as he was in the arms of the chosen king.

"Did you say my name?" Ardyn whispered into Noct's shoulder.

"Yeah, a minute ago," Noct said. He sat back, still holding Ardyn by the arms. All it had taken was a call to the archivist at the Meldacio Hunter HQ to confirm what they all suspected was the truth. There _had_ been a hidden son in the Caelum line. The darkest chapter of his family could no longer be hidden--Not while Ardyn stood before him, wearing a chocobo festival shirt and pajama pants, looking at Noct with all of the trust he didn't deserve.

"Ardyn," he said. "Do you have a best friend?"

"What?" Ardyn kept glancing over his shoulder. "Oh, yes. Somnus."

Noct tried not to cringe. "Right, yeah, well, I have a best friend, too. Other than these guys, I mean. Her name's Luna. Lunafreya."

"Okay." Ardyn twisted round, squinting into the dark.

"And I think we might want to go and see her. She's a healer like you."

"No one's like _me,_ " Ardyn said. He wriggled out of Noct's hold and went to the balcony railing. "The lights are off."

"Ardyn," Noct said. "I think Luna might--what do you mean, the lights are off?" Noct stood up, and Ardyn pointed across the high buildings, where a gap that usually shone with the lights of the lookout was nothing more than a slat of blackness. 

"Listen," Ardyn said. "Someone's down there."

An alarm rose from the border, high and insistent, and the others rose out of their beds and couches as every lamp, candle, and overhead light in the city flicked on. Dogs barked in the windows of nearby buildings, and Gladio was at the door to the balcony, a sword drawn, one arm out for Noct and Ardyn.

"Out of the open, your majesty," he said. His gaze was cold, distant, taking on the detached air of a shield.

A shield to two kings, now, Noct thought, as he ushered Ardyn behind Gladio. 

"Daemon lights in the plaza are out," Iris said, and Ardyn frowned. 

"Hey, Iris," Prompto said. "Ix-nay on the eamons-day." Iris blushed to her ears, and Ardyn's frown deepened.

"There it is again," he said. "My name. Someone's saying my name."

"The blackout's spreading!" Gladio's voice boomed over the sirens. "Ignis! Grab Talcott! Iris, wake up Jared! Prompto, with Iris, You two, you're with me!"

"Why, though?" Ardyn began, then yelped as Gladio swung him over his shoulder. Noct summoned a sword, and the windows of the building opposite went dark. "Wait--"

"Too late!" Ignis shouted, and with a spray of sparks, every light in the room shattered.

"The roof," Gladio said. "It's closer. Everyone get Jared and Talcott to the roof."

Prompto kicked open the door, guns out, and fired a shot down the hallway. "Mindflayer!" he called. He was grinning, teeth bared like they always were when cave tunnels grew narrow and the daemons ran thick, and he popped a glowing bullet in his gun and fired, casting a trail of golden light through the hall. "I'll cover."

"Mindflayer?" Ardyn asked. "What's a mindflayer?"

Outside, the balcony buckled like a sheet of aluminum in a high wind, and a hand clawed at the rail. There were too many fingers, dripping with a black and purpling ooze, merging and reforming and curling around each other as another hand appeared, drawing up a massive form. A mouth opened, and Noct felt the air suck out of his lungs as a voice rattled through the room, hoarse and terrible.

"Ardyn," it hissed.

Ardyn let out a cry as Gladio raced into the hall after Ignis and Talcott. Iris had Jared already, leading him to the stairs while Prompto fired shot after shot at the mindflayer drifting slowly towards them. Noct slammed the door shut to the sound of glass breaking, and turned to see Ardyn over Gladio's shoulder, staring in horror at the daemon in the hall.

"It's a soul-breaker," Ardyn said. "Why--"

"Not yet," Noct said. "Stay with Gladio."

"Noct, I... I demand..." Ardyn yelped again as Gladio covered his eyes, but the damage was done. Noct grabbed Prompto by the collar as they ran for the stairs, the mindflayer wailing its death throes behind them.

There were imps on the stairs. Of course there were imps on the stairs. Noct cleaved through them, cutting a path before they could get to Talcott or Jared. Iris ducked under his arm, fists clenched, and beat down the daemons that slipped through Noct's guard. Together, they led the group of them onto the roof, where a crowd of people were already trying to cross a set of planks anchored between buildings. Ardyn kicked in Gladio's hold, and Prompto took the rear, firing into the dark below.

"Not enough time to get across," Noct said.

"Put me down!" Ardyn cried. "Put me _down,_ there shouldn't even _be_ daemons here, put me--"

"Easy," Noct said. "We're Crownsguard, remember? We're here to protect you."

"You can't be your own guard!" Ardyn snapped.

Behind the closed door to the stairs, something began to laugh. It was a low, gurgling chuckle, but Noct could almost hear something familiar behind it, a cadence that could have belonged to another man, standing on the edge of a haven what felt like a lifetime ago.

_It had my voice._

"A haven," Noct said. "Daemons can't cross a haven."

"They can't cross a warding light, either," Prompto said.

"Yeah, but--" Noct looked behind him. Half of the Leville was still up there, trying to cross. Talcott and Jared stood by Iris, Talcott's hand in hers, his gaze fixed on Noct. There wasn't enough time. Noct was supposed to be king, he was supposed to _fix_ problems like this, his dad--

His dad would have...

"Give Ardyn to me," Noct said. Gladio's blank expression darkened.

"No."

"I'm the only one who can warp," Noct said. Gladio shifted his feet, jaw clenched.

"It's too--" 

" _That wasn't a suggestion, Gladio._ "

Gladio's shoulders sank, his chin lifting to attention, eyes overbright. "Yes, your majesty."

"I'm not going anywhere!" Ardyn shouted, as Gladio pried him loose and handed him to Noct. He shoved a hand in Noct's face, but Noct held on tight, an arm wrapped around his middle.

"Don't die," Noct said. "I'll see you at the haven."

"Yes, sir."

Noct tried not to think about that. He tried not to think about the boy fighting him every step to the edge of the roof, tried not to think about the way the concrete shook as something threw itself against the door, tried not to think about the laughter that rose to a hysterical pitch, the scream of the crowd as he jumped, or Ardyn's terrified shout in his ear.

He tightened his hold on Ardyn, heaved his sword into the first floor of the building across the street, and threw them both into a falling warp just as the door to the stairs fell open with a scream of broken metal.


	6. Chapter 6

It would have been easier, Noct thought, as he heaved Ardyn into the Regalia and turned on the ignition, if Ardyn were still shouting orders. It would have been easier to navigate the rapidly darkening streets of Lestallum with a struggling, sniping, imperious kid _demanding_ that he stop, beating Noct's side with his fists and threatening divine retribution. 

Under his arm, half slumped on the floor of the driver's seat, Ardyn wept softly into his clenched fists. 

The light of a red giant cast a faint orange glow over the street ahead, and Noct slammed on the gas. He wondered, as he swerved around the hulking form rising out of the asphalt, how easy it had been for his ancestor to bind Ardyn in chains and leave him in the dark. Whether Ardyn had cursed him, then, had spat and growled and strained against his bonds. But something told him that wasn't true. He suspected that Ardyn had fallen to his brother quietly, with the keen edge of heartbreak slowly digging into him, year after year in the dark of Angelgard. 

"We're almost there," Noct said. Something howled behind them, and Ardyn yelped as though struck. Rather than park on the side of the road, Noct swerved into the grass, narrowly missing a spider daemon and charging through a squad of imps. Ardyn screamed, and Noct summoned his shield from his armiger as he slammed on the brakes.

"Come on, Ardyn," he shouted. He wrestled Ardyn's limp, unresisting form out of the car and into his arms. His shield dropped back into his armiger, and Noct's trick leg buckled, pain shooting up his spine as he started to run. The haven was ten yards away, a plume of light blue rising from the center of the runes. The ground bubbled and spat under his feet, and ooze sucked at Noct's boots, trying to hold him fast. He warped onto the edge of the haven, threw Ardyn further in, and rolled onto the runes just as claws scrabbled at the stone where he'd been.

Ardyn lay next to the fire, slowly curling in on himself. He tucked up his knees and grabbed at his shoulders, and Noct remembered, vaguely, being very small and miserable in the waiting room while his father sat in council, trying to hug himself the way his nurse used to hold him before the attack. Noct got to his hands and knees and approached Ardyn, who curled into a tighter ball.

"Can I touch you?" Noct asked.

"No," Ardyn sobbed.

"Okay." Noct sat next to him, watching the darkness take shape around the haven. Daemons crowded up to the edge of the haven, dozens of them, blocking the stone on all sides, pressing up against the protection of the runes. Noct dug in his armiger for a flask of lightning and lobbed it at a group of them, which gibbered and scattered as it broke.

"There shouldn't be daemons anymore," Ardyn whispered.

"I don't know," Noct said, carefully. "That's a lot for one person to take care of, don't you think? And you brought back the stars, didn't you?"

"It isn't right," Ardyn said. He shifted so that his back was pressed to Noct's side. "I wouldn't have let it happen. Something must have..." He went quiet, suddenly, and his fingers unfurled from his sleeve. "I died. I died the last time I healed, and they sent me here."

"No," Noct said. "No, Ardyn, you didn't--"

"It always _feels_ like dying, when I take in the Scourge," Ardyn said. "Somnus hates it. He's been talking about leaving me with Gil, sometimes, so he can stay and try and build a border instead." He was silent again for a long, terrible minute. "Was Somnus okay?"

"Yeah," Noct said. "Somnus lived."

"Oh. Oh, good. I'd hate it if he..." Ardyn shuddered and rolled over, wrapping his arms around Noct's middle. "I don't want to be dead."

"You aren't dead," Noct said. "You were just, just sick for a while, yeah? The Scourge hurt you. So you, so your brother."

The lie died on his tongue.

"I won't let it hurt you again," Noct said. 

"A bold promise," someone said, "Coming from the last of a long line of oath-breakers."

Beyond the border of the haven, the daemons had gone silent. Ardyn sat up, still holding onto Noct, as a dark shape took form between two gently-bobbing lightning bombs. Their glow seemed to disappear into the darkness of the creature's body, like light rushing into a black hole, and Noct took Ardyn's shoulders, holding him fast.

"Ardyn," the creature said. "My dear heart. My light."

Ardyn blinked slowly, like one waking from a dream.

"Don't listen to it," Noct whispered.

"Oh, he'd say that, wouldn't he?" the creature said. "He's been lying to you this whole time, hasn't he? Poor thing. Poor us. Betrayed by the gods, by our brother, by the new king of light himself."

"The new what?" Ardyn asked. Noct's grip on his arms tightened.

"It doesn't matter," Noct said. "Don't listen. It just wants to take you, Ardyn."

"But I've had you," the creature said. "I've had you for centuries. For millennia. All those years in the dark, chained to the walls of our prison, it was just us. You and the universe. The universe as it should be, as it was meant to be, beautiful and undying."

"You know what we're gonna do?" Noct said, raising his voice over the creature's sinuous whisper. "When this is over, I'm gonna take you to Insomnia. You and Luna and the guys, we're gonna walk right through the front gates--"

"You can still feel the pull of the chains in your back, little prince," the creature rasped. Ardyn started to shake.

"And we'll go right for the arcade. You and Luna can learn how to do karaoke--She always said she wanted to try it out--and we can get sushi and go fishing off the public docks, and when it's over--"

"You know who brought you there? To that prison in the sea? Do you remember?"

"I'll tell you everything, but only if you want to know, and I'll make sure that for every bad memory, we make a new one. A great one. We'll teach you how to ride a chocobo--"

"I can bring us vengeance," the creature said. 

"I'll teach you how to fish. You can tell me everything I don't know about what it was like when you were little, and we'll write a book about it."

"It's okay," Ardyn said. He pulled away from Noct, pushing at his arm, and looked up at him in the light of the haven runes. "I know you mean it. And I'm not a _baby._ I won't let some daemon trick me into getting eaten."

"We're so much more than a daemon," the creature said. Ardyn frowned, turning to face it.

"I don't think it's lying, either," he said, in a quiet voice. "But." He held out his hand, and Noct took it. Small fingers wrapped tight around his.

"We'll have to kill it," Ardyn whispered.

"No." The creature's voice rose to a howl, and Noct stood, keeping Ardyn close to his side. " _No._ "

"It's alright," Noct said. "It can't--"

The creature raised one foot onto the stone surface of the haven, and their howl rose to a shriek. Ardyn screamed, doubling over in pain, and the creature staggered forward, hissing and yowling with every heavy step. Noct summoned his sword, and the creature raised a fist that shifted and bulged with the formless ooze of the Scourge. Ardyn raised his own hand, and a brilliant shield of light curved over them just as the creature struck. They cried out again, and Noct stepped in front of Ardyn, holding out his sword.

"It won't be enough," Ardyn said, as the creature beat their fists against the shield. "Steel doesn't stop a daemon."

The shield started to splinter, hair-thin cracks appearing over the surface. Noct ground his teeth and braced himself to strike, but Ardyn yanked on his hand, throwing him off balance.

"Were you telling the truth?" he asked. "About the chocobos?"

"What? Yes." Noct tried to stand, but Ardyn tugged at him again.

"And fishing? And the carry thing?"

"Yeah, of course! Yes!"

"And can I stay?" Ardyn's grip on his hand was painfully tight. "If we win, can I stay?"

"Yes!"

Ardyn nodded and squeezed Noct's hand. "Then I'm sorry," he said, "but this is going to hurt."

Ardyn closed his eyes, the shield shattered, and the world went white.


	7. Chapter 7

Memory was never truly linear, in Noct's experience. It came at Noctis sideways--He could get in and out of the Regalia six times in one afternoon and not think of his father once, but the rustle of papers in the glove compartment made him think of warm eyes and a trim beard, of Regis' hands pointing out the controls while Noct sat nervously in the driver's seat, his eyes just peeking out from over the top of the wheel.

For Ardyn, memory was far more tenuous still.

Two thousand years before the light swallowed Noctis, Ardyn Lucis Caelum woke from a fitful dream with the feeling that something in the world had shifted in the night. Now and then, he found himself reaching for a hand that wasn't there, turning for a face he couldn't remember, listening for the stamp of footsteps at his back. When he was older, and the Scourge bent him double over sickbeds and left him shaking in his cloak, Ardyn's tongue curled around a word that never quite came out right, the name of a ghost. It gave him comfort, though, in those cold, awful moments, when his fingers grew numb and his veins pulsed black with the plague. It made him feel less alone.

And in the dark of Angelgard, when the first hook was thrust through his palm, the word was ripped out of him in a shout of anguish, of betrayal, his last desperate attempt to hold onto something good before the darkness took him.

"Noctis?" Somnus had asked, standing in the light at the mouth of the cave. "Why in the gods' names would he say _noctis?_ "

By the time Ardyn was free, standing under the harsh light of the sun with a different name and a new king traipsing down the boardwalk of Galdin Quay, all he knew of Noctis was that he hated him.

 

\---

 

Noct woke to a high, tinny ringing in his ears and metal in his mouth. Spots flared as he blinked in the sudden, rushing darkness, and he turned instinctively towards the only light remaining in the haven, rising from the runes circling the young teenager standing at the edge, embracing a shadow.

Noct hissed in a sharp breath. The teenaged boy had Ardyn's defined jaw and a mess of tangled hair, and his shoulders were a little too broad for the rest of him in that haphazard way that children tended to grow up, one awkward piece at a time. He looked at Noct, and the creature he held rumbled in displeasure. It was seeping into him, sinking into Ardyn's veins and making twisting pathways towards his heart.

"Oh," Ardyn said. His voice was deeper, now, closer to the man Noct had, for a brief time, thought he'd known. "You're up."

The creature sighed and wrapped a hand around Ardyn's upper arm. The black veins of the Scourge sprouted tendrils that twisted in Ardyn's neck, taking root there. Ardyn grunted and dropped to a knee. The creature bent over him, eager, slowly losing their shape as they consumed him.

"It would have been nice," Ardyn said. "Even if I have to leave Somnus, and Gil, I... It would have been..."

Noct got to his feet, his legs shaking, pain racing up his spine, and Ardyn made a choked sound of protest.

"No." He bent under the weight of the creature's embrace. "I can hold it back. When it takes me, for a while... I think I can hold it. I'm _supposed_ to hold it. That's why they made me."

"That's not what you're for," Noct said.

Ardyn pinched his lips shut for a moment, breathing hard through his nose. "Don't."

"That's not what you're for," Noct said again. He stepped on the last glowing rune between him and Ardyn, and blackness started to trail from Ardyn's eyes, clinging to his lashes. 

"I know what's supposed to happen now," Ardyn said. "It's okay. It's okay, Noct, you can do it. It's okay if you do it."

"No," Noct said, and took Ardyn by the shoulders, dragging him out of the creature's grip and against his chest.

And 

the stars

tilted

And the wind

rose

And the seas of Altissia ran dark.

And Lunafreya Nox Fleuret dropped the ring of the Lucii like a burning coal, where it skittered and trembled and burst in a blinding ray of light that sucked the gift of the gods out of her, a shining pillar roaring into the night.

And Ignis, Prompto and Gladio looked up from their stolen car as light branched out across the distant sky like the roots of an ancient tree.

And in the heart of the Lucian crystal, metal wings shifted, and the power of the gods reached out through the cosmos, searching for a hand to wield it. 

But none of that mattered, because for the first time in Ardyn Lucis Caelum's life, someone stood between him and the Scourge.

The Starscourge had touched the chosen king, and while the universe rearranged itself to come to his aid, Noctis only took a painful, shuffling step and lay Ardyn down on the remaining runes of the haven.

"You've done it before," Noct said. "You can cast it out again."

Ardyn looked up into the shadow looming over Noctis. The shadow with his voice. He'd only ever taken in the Scourge, made it his, turned it into something of himself. No one has ever suggested that he try the opposite.

Why would they?

Ardyn reached for Noct's hand. He took it, and as he bowed over him, Ardyn shuddered at the warm brush of lips against his forehead and threw himself into the heart of his power.

Push it out. 

Light fell like rain from the thin branches in the sky, hissing as it struck the Scourge creeping over Noct, but Ardyn didn't see it. He saw himself instead, held by chains in the dark of Angelgard, trying to breathe in the wake of the cavern door rolling shut. He saw the horrified faces of strangers standing around a fire. He saw Noct lying on a sleeping bag, pointing out the stars.

Someone was screaming. He wasn't sure who it was--the Scourge made in his shape, or himself, or Noct--but he knew that Noct was holding him, shielding him in a way no one before him ever had, and Ardyn realized with a jolt that Noct was right, that this _wasn't what he was made for._

The runes of the haven shone as the light of the crystal fell in great sheets around them, like an aurora, a river of power, a ripple of heat. The creature yowled, and Ardyn took hold of the healing magic he'd been given and _reversed_ it--

The gods did not prepare themselves for a vessel that no longer wanted to be filled. But even the most gilded cups can roll, and with the warmth of Noctis holding him, Ardyn found that he could finally, finally, change his shape. And the Scourge, his own unwanted shadow, had to change with him. Two thousand years of power were unleashed in an instant, and with the Oracle's gift piercing the sky, the darkness fled before him.

There was silence in the fields, after. The wind died down to a whisper, and Ardyn felt his memories trickling away, sliding over his mind like rain on glass. He knew that he'd been left in the dark, once. He knew that Somnus wasn't the brother he thought him to be. But the fear was gone, and Noct was with him, and the stars above were bright and brilliant and dazzling in their sheer numbers.

"Noct," he whispered. Noct sat up, wincing, and squinted down at him.

"You're back," Noct said.

Ardyn nodded, and let Noct hold him, pulling him into his arms as though to protect him from a night that held no horrors. 

"Yes," Ardyn said. "I'm back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One chapter left! Thank you all for your support so far. Your comments make my day, and I just can't seem to find the proper words to thank you!


	8. Chapter 8

Spring came to Altissia year-round, heralded by boats of fruit and flowers from Tenebrae and Lucis, and carefully crafted by hands that rubbed scented oil in cloth blossoms and garlands. Every dock was wrapped with vines and bursting with jars of flowers, and the scent drifted on the breeze for miles, overwhelming the fishing boats anchored off the coast.

Gladio took a long, red-eyed look at it all, wrinkled his nose, and sneezed into his hands.

"Ew," said Ardyn. He stood at the railing at the prow of the Caelum family ship, bathed in sunlight. His hair was shorter around the edges after a perfunctory haircut by Ignis, who had sighed and left the back alone once Ardyn insisted that "real men grow their hair _out._ " By their estimation, he was around the age of six or seven again, though he showed flashes of something more, sometimes, struggling with the memories the Scourge left behind. Still, with a skull-print shirt, a flowery pair of swim trunks, and bright plastic flip flops, it was hard to think of him as anything but an ordinary kid. Iris had even let him borrow her butterfly hair clips from her suitcase, which he wore to keep his bangs out of his eyes.

"Have you been to Altissia before?" Noct asked. He grasped Ardyn by the collar as the boat jerked to a stop, and Ardyn shrugged.

"Maybe," he said. "Are there still mermaids here?"

There was a long silence. Ardyn sighed.

"I thought they'd turn out to be real," he said, and jumped back from the railing. Noct kept a firm grip on his shirt. "You sure there aren't any?"

"Positive," Noct said.

"But are you _really_ sure?" 

Ardyn swayed a little as they waited for the boat to be chained to the dock, and Noct let him lean into his side for balance. Ardyn still wasn't sleeping well since the Scourge was banished at the haven, and tended to get up in the night to wedge himself between Noct and Gladio, where he thrashed restlessly, shoving his hand in Noct's face and kicking Gladio in the back. He was always the first to wake up, drinking orange juice from a coffee cup while he slyly tried to mimic Ignis, and he'd taken to jogging with Prompto at dawn. He napped in the car sometimes, and spent most of the trip to Altissia lounging on the deck, but Noct was secretly glad that they were on the way to Luna. They _needed_ an expert on the Scourge, even if most signs of it had disappeared.

Ardyn wobbled onto the dock with his hand in Noct's, eyeing the water under the planks suspiciously, and picked a leaf off a garland. "Where's Princess Lunafreya?" he asked, pronouncing her name with care.

"Oh, she's here somewhere," Noct said. "Sightseers," he said to the man at the customs desk, passing him a slip of paper they'd borrowed from Cid. The man nodded and stamped it, then waved them through. "She's probably at the governor's place--The empire's still around, even if their MTs are out of commission--"

He stopped short at the end of the dock. A woman sat on a patio chair by a small cafe, a wide-brimmed hat fitted over her light blonde hair. She lifted her mirrored sunglasses and smiled, blue eyes crinkling.

"Hello, Noctis," Luna said.

 

\---

 

That night, Noct and Luna watched the sun set over the wall of water on the edge of Altissia, gilding the canals with ropes of orange and violet. It had been a long afternoon--Luna had said nothing of meeting with the governor, focusing instead on charming her way into Ardyn's good graces with the unerring patience of a kindergarten teacher and the quick thinking of a politician rolled into one. Ardyn was babbling to her within the hour, skipping backwards ahead of her with a broad grin--Luna had declared him the official spokesperson for the group, asking his account of what had happened over the past week, and he was practically hopping with excitement. She nodded and gasped at all the right spots in his disjointed story, and when she offered to buy him an ice cream bar in the shape of a moogle, Ardyn grabbed Noct by the sleeve and dragged him behind a clump of flowers.

"Prompto says you're marrying her," Ardyn said. Noct only just managed not to choke on his own tongue.

"I. Uh, thing is--"

"You should," Ardyn said. "She's nice. You don't have to kiss her or anything," he added, suddenly realizing a serious drawback to his new occupation as matchmaker. "You can just do karaoke like you said before. Karaoke isn't kissing, right?"

Noct coughed. "No," he said, when he could talk again. "No, it definitely isn't."

"That's good."

By the time they made it to the Leville, Ardyn was asleep on his feet. They left him knocked out on the pull-out bed while Luna and Noct popped open a bottle of champagne Noct had squirreled away in his armiger. Luna propped her feet up on Noct's lap and leaned back in her chair.

"So," she said. "I checked him for the Scourge."

Noct sat up, almost tipping over his glass. "Yeah?"

"He's safe." Luna took a sip of her drink. "There isn't a hint of sickness in him--He's perfectly healthy. But Noct, I think it goes without saying that he's... bearing quite a bit, right now. Emotional burdens have an effect on the body, you know, and I can see it in him. There's a loneliness in him that even he doesn't fully understand."

Noct met her unwavering gaze. "I know."

"He needs looking after," Luna said. "I can stay with him, if you--"

"I'm keeping him," Noct said. 

"Even if it's difficult?" Luna raised a brow. "Even when you're rebuilding Insomnia, and your days are too crowded to look after a small boy?"

"What? No. No, I'll _make_ time," Noct said. 

Luna smiled to herself, looking down at her hands. "It sounds like you care for him."

If it were anyone else, Noct would have brushed the unspoken question aside. But this was Luna, the one Noct had written his private thoughts to for years, the one who sent him pressed flowers and asked for lyrics to songs she wasn't allowed to listen to on the radio. He set down his drink.

"Of course I care about him," he said. "I thought you knew."

"I do," Luna said, slowly getting to her feet. "But sometimes it's good to hear you say it." She brushed off her dress and turned to the balcony door. "Do you want to take my place? I think I need to turn in for the night."

Noct twisted round in his chair. Ardyn stood at the door, holding his moogle plush, eyes trained on Noct. Luna brushed Noct's hair with her hand in farewell, and she leaned down to muss Ardyn's hair in turn as she passed. He ducked through the door, and Noct patted the chair next to him. Ardyn looked at it, looked at Noct, and took a breath.

"Or we can share," Noct said. Ardyn let out a sigh and squeezed in next to Noct, snuggling up to his side. Noct reached over him to nudge the bottle of champagne a little further away, and Ardyn grabbed his arm and wrapped it around his shoulders.

"Hey, kid," Noct said. "Trouble sleeping?"

"Kind of," Ardyn said. He lay his head on Noct's chest. "It's dark in there."

Noct nodded. "Wanna camp out under the stars tonight?"

"Yeah."

Noct summoned a blanket from his armiger, and Ardyn helped arrange it over their legs. Below them, the night fishing boats were out in the distance, their lights shining over the water. Music played in the street, and gondolas swished through the canals, their little lanterns bobbing.

"I thought of something," Ardyn said. "I don't know what I'm going to be when I grow up anymore."

"That's okay," Noct said. "Most people don't know."

"But I was going to be king," Ardyn said. 

"Well." Noct tucked the blanket into Ardyn's side. "You _can_ be, I guess, when I'm done. But it's up to you."

"That's not how it works," Ardyn said. "Your children will be king. I'm..." He stopped, blinking hard. "Oh." Ardyn's breath hitched dangerously, and he raised a hand to his eyes. "I'm still kind of your grandfather," he said.

"Grand uncle, technically," Noct said. "But it's been two thousand years. You're still a Lucis Caelum."

"What if I wasn't?" 

"Doesn't matter," Noct said. "You'd be one now. If you want to be," he added.

Ardyn took a great, gulping breath. "I don't have a dad," he said, in a small, hoarse voice.

Noct struggled to keep his own voice steady. "Do you want one?"

Ardyn nodded, face buried in Noct's chest, and Noct held him while he got his breathing under control. At last, Ardyn hugged his moogle plush to his chest and rolled to his side.

"Noct?" he asked, after a few minutes of silence.

"Mm?"

"Can you tell me about the stars again?" Ardyn asked. "The stories, like last time?"

"Yeah, Ardyn," Noct said. He lifted his gaze to the stars, and Ardyn followed him, tucked in at his side with a shaky, hopeful smile. "I'd love to."


End file.
